[mormegil]

> What I would love, however, is a way to turn that off for particular searches

But you can! In search results, click Tools and switch the Any time dropdown to Custom range... and you can specify a date range in the past. (Apparently, the custom option is hidden in the mobile version?!) I'm not sure how precise and dependable it is but it seems at least partially useful when I search for historical events.

[zdragnar]

I don't actually want to exclude new content, I just don't want to give it priority over older content if the older content is at least equally specific in matching my query.